Sixes of One

A story by Annemarie Musawale

Chapter One: Apocalypse Now

Paula Domitia wiggled her way from under the pile of rocks she’d been hiding under shielding the baby in the groove of her abdomen. It had been almost a week since she’d seen the light and she didn’t know what was waiting out there. She’d kept an ear out, listening for the things. The things that used to be her neighbors, her family, her friends. Now they were just…mouths and hands and destruction.

They would eat anything; concrete, steel, brick, flesh, bone or blood. The comic books had gotten it all wrong. Zombies didn’t eat brains. Or maybe these weren’t zombies. Maybe they were just horrible mutations brought about by radiation, global warming and adaptation to the befouled air.

It had started so slowly, so insidiously that hardly anyone noticed. CNN first called it a new craze; people craving stones to eat.

There was precedent after all.

Pregnant women were known to eat stones now and then.

For the calcium or something.

And then there was the superhuman strength.

Adrenalin, scientists said. Maybe something in the stones people were eating caused them to become stronger. Anyway, people had bigger concerns. Like surviving the Third World War presidents Trump and Putin had rained down upon them. Or trying to get through the hottest decade in history without melting or starving to death.

Paula had called bullshit. Something else had been going on, she knew it. So she made plans. Beginning with stocking up on sun screen and toilet paper.

And changing her major from linguistics to architectural engineering. For her third year project she built a bunker in a field.

Underground.

With its own air supply and water source.

She fixed in solar panels for electricity and every week, she went shopping for non-perishable foodstuffs. Beef jerky, applesauce, power bars, milk powder, cereal bars, ramen noodles.

Every time she saw a news report of something else strange that humans were doing, she’d go back to her bunker, and look over her stock. It was comforting.

When the news reports started coming in of people developing reptilian scales on their back and the beginnings of a tail she knew it was time to hunker down.

∞

Three years.

That’s how long her stock lasted.

She hadn’t been to the surface in all that time, hadn’t tried to use her cell phone or get in touch with her family. She didn’t try to go see what was going on. For the first year, there was TV; CNN documenting every riot, every bizarre incident of people eating people and buildings. The denial, followed by fear and too late, action.

By then too many people were infected or affected or whatever. It was a post dystopian world before anyone knew it.

In the middle of the second year there were raging storms and tornados. Whole mountainsides were blown away, the topography of the landscape changing from hill to valley. Something fell on the upper door of Paula’s bunker. Something huge.

That way was blocked to her. Luckily she’d had one full year of boredom and nothing to do. And she’d built a maze of tunnels. There were five different openings to the bunker now, assuming they weren’t all caved in.

∞

She’d heard when whoever it was gave birth. They’d found an entrance to the tunnel and walked into it. They had called out, to see if anyone was present. Paula kept her mouth shut and hoped that they’d give up. Eventually there was silence, and then screaming and then a baby crying. The baby cried for three days before Paula ventured out to see…

It looked like the mother bled to death. She seemed to still be human and the baby too. The small squirming bundle of upset that didn’t cease to scream until Paula picked her up.

So then Paula had a baby.

And a body to bury.

Excellent.

Email: amusawale@gmail.com
Skype: amusawale
Website: http://bit.ly/Annemariecontentlyprofile
Address: Nairobi, Kenya